Introducing the Public Media Executives Selected for 2025 Poynter/CPB Fellowship to Strengthen Editorial Leadership

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (May 1, 2025) — Poynter is pleased to announce 23 executives from across the nation have been selected for the 2025 Public Media Executive Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative, a six-month fellowship developed by the Poynter Institute and funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

The fellowship, which began this week, will equip public media leaders with support, tools, and individualized training to help build stronger stations, reflecting the goal shared by CPB and Poynter   to strengthen local journalism.

“Local journalism is essential to the civic health of our nation, because it provides relevant, fact-based information to respond to the information needs of the communities it serves, reflecting and respecting local voices and perspectives,” said Kathy Merritt, CPB executive vice president and chief operating officer.  “These station leaders know their communities and work every day to serve local audiences. CPB supports the Executive Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative because we know their communities trust these leaders to make the right decisions on editorial ethics and standards.”

Designed to be effective across experience levels and station types, the program brings together public media executives whose stations serve audiences that range from rural markets to regional networks. The Executive EILI program builds on the Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative, a CPB-supported program that has graduated 150 editors in the past six years.

“Local public media is becoming more and more important in every market as commercial media shrinks,” said Kelly McBride, Poynter’s senior vice president and chair of Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership. “These executives are doing work that is critical to democracy and I’m thrilled that Poynter can support their work.”

Fellows chosen for the 2025 Executive Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative are:

• Matt Abramovitz, President, New England Public Media, Amherst, MA
• Lauren Adams, General Manager, KUCB, Unalaska, AK
• Andrew Batt, Executive Director and General Manager, Iowa PBS, Johnston, IA
• Emily Cohen, Executive Director, KHOL, Jackson, WY
• Jennifer Dorian, CEO, WABE, Atlanta, GA
• Jody Evans Hamblett, Director, WUOT, Knoxville, TN
• Paul Hunton, President, WUNC, Chapel Hill, NC
• Corey Lewis, General Manager, WGCU, Ft. Myers, FL
• David Lee, President and General Manager, WUWM, Milwaukee, WI
• David Lowe, President and General Manager, KVIE, Sacramento, CA
• Becky Magura, President and CEO, Nashville PBS, Nashville, TN
• Jose Martinez-Saldana, Co Executive Director, Radio Bilingue, Fresno, CA
• Carla McCabe, President and CEO, WVIA, Scranton, PA
• Tom Michael, General Manager, Boise State Public Radio, Boise, ID
• Breeze Richardson, Executive Director, Aspen Public Radio, Aspen, CO
• Jim Rondeau, General Manager, KLCC, Eugene, Oregon
• Jaclyn Sallee, President and CEO, KNBA - Koahnic Broadcast Corporation, Anchorage, AK
• Alejandra Santamaria, President and CEO, SCPR/LAist, Pasadena, CA
• Justin Shoman, President and General Manager, KTOO Public Media, Juneau, AK
• Jordan Siegler, Interim Executive Director, Wisconsin Public Media, Madison, WI
• Vijay Singh, CEO, Vermont Public, Colchester, VT
• Shawn Turner, General Manager, WKAR, East Lansing, MI
• Stewart Vanderwilt, CEO, Colorado Public Radio, Denver, CO

Fellows will focus on implementing a leadership action plan built from their newsroom’s vision and informed by the frameworks gained during their week spent at Poynter in St. Petersburg. The program cultivates a collaborative, supportive space where executives learn together and build lasting bonds with Poynter's signature training in leadership and ethical decision-making at the core.

“This is the right time to bring these leaders together,” said Kerwin Speight, Poynter leadership faculty. “The landscape for local journalism keeps changing. This work will help them adapt, adjust, and effectively lead.”

Beyond their week spent together in person, fellows will continue to engage in virtual sessions including one-on-one and group coaching, small-group work, and live executive training.

The program is led by Poynter’s Kelly McBride, senior vice president and chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership, and Poynter faculty Cheryl Carpenter and Kerwin Speight.

About CPB
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private, nonprofit corporation authorized by Congress in 1967, is the steward of the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,500 locally managed and operated public television and radio stations nationwide. CPB is also the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television, and related online services. For more information, visit www.cpb.org and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and subscribe for email updates.

About The Poynter Institute
The Poynter Institute is a global nonprofit working to address society’s most pressing issues by teaching journalists and journalism, covering the media and the complexities facing the industry, convening and community building, improving the capacity and sustainability of news organizations and fostering trust and reliability of information. The Institute is the gold standard in journalistic excellence and dedicated to the preservation and advancement of press freedom in democracies worldwide. Through Poynter, journalists, newsrooms, businesses, big tech corporations and citizens convene to find solutions that promote trust and transparency in news and stoke meaningful public discourse. The world’s top journalists and emerging media leaders rely on the Institute to learn new skills, adopt best practices, better serve audiences, scale operations and improve the quality of the universally shared information ecosystem.

The Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), MediaWise and PolitiFact are all members of the Poynter organization.

Support for Poynter and our entities upholds the integrity of the free press and the U.S. First Amendment and builds public confidence in journalism and media — an essential for healthy democracies. Learn more at poynter.org.